


Ashes to Ashes

by unwrittentwist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Angst, Cigarettes, End of an era, Feels, Gen, Poetry, Prose Poem, Reaction, Senses, Silence, The Family Business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7603375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwrittentwist/pseuds/unwrittentwist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dean, when this is all over...you're gonna have to let me go my own way." | "I want you to have a life... you with a wife and kids and grandkids..." | Sometime in the future, Dean knows he has to let go of Sammy once and for all. Sam finally leaves the hunter's life to be normal and start a family. No exact time frame or setting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes to Ashes

Smoke tendrils curl in the air like a drop of blood unwinds itself in water – continually thinning.  
They reach for the moon across the vapid breadth but are stopped short as a gentle breeze rolls through and carries them away into the unknown.  
Embers glint  
                        and flicker  
                                                out of existence            
                                                                             one by one  
taking the only source of illumination and warmth away from two still companions.  
The tin roof they’re seated on seems to grow colder in the minuscule flame’s absence,  
becoming ice that is quick to bite at their bare feet until they are numb to all external feeling.  
The stench of lit tobacco is galling and harsh  
dominating and staining in its unpalatability.  
The toxic aroma smells the same way you would expect sandpapering your throat would feel like.  
It tranquilizes them both  
even as the haze claws through the surrounding air, swallowing up the virgin oxygen as it fights to enter their lungs.  
  
Their shared cigarette burns as slow as the brand of whiskey their dad used to drink and as dangerously as Harvelle’s Roadhouse when Ava thought it would be fun to play with matches.  
  
One side-eyed the other, worrying his lower lip with his teeth. He supposed that there was no point in drinking things through now that their conversation was over and done with.  
Soon enough, the burnt out butt would meet its final end and he would watch as his older brother ground the remaining life out of it between two calloused finger tips only to flick it over the edge of the roof to disappear forever.  
The night was just about as loud as a movie theater playing _Safety Last_.  
It threatened to gobble them up in one bite, chew their bodies into tiny pieces, and spew the bits out into the sky to form new constellations.  
Proper goodbyes had never been either of their strong suits – it just didn’t run in the family. 

_Finis omnium saeculum_

  
Blood may be thicker than smoke and water alike, but water is certainly sweeter.  


**Author's Note:**

> "Finis omnium saeculum" is a Latin phrase that translates to "the end of an era" ~
> 
> This was the product of a homework assignment in my Creative Writing: Poetry class. There was a semi-strict rubric to follow as far as literary devices went but I had fun with it in my own way. After all, what has more of a chance at being poetic than a goodbye?


End file.
